Part 23 (1/2)
”That was in the middle of the summer, and it was farther south--not far from the railroad tracks.”
”Well, what happened then?”
”That was the time he helped me.”
”How was that?”
”I can't never tell you exactly how it was, but somehow I had got my foot wedged in the root of a tree, and I had been tryin' an hour to git it out, without success. The tree was hard, and I was just tacklin' that root with my knife--I'd have cut through it in about an hour, I reckon--when 'long comes that feller Handsome that I had saved from the hole in the rocks. He had an axe on his shoulder, and when he spied me he stopped, and laughed, and laughed until I got mad.
”'Caught in yer own trap, ain't ye?' he axed me.
”'I be,' says I. 'You've got a axe, and mebby you kin help me out o'
it.'
”Well, he did. He chopped the root in a jiffy, and I was free; but, bless you, I could 'a' done it myself with my knife in a hour, anyhow.
All the same, I was grateful to him, and we sot down on a log and chinned for a while.”
”What about?”
”He asked me what I was doing around there, and I told him that I was thinking of looking over the swamp below the tracks a leetle, with some idea of settin' traps there late this fall and winter, and he said as how he wouldn't advise me to do it. He said as how I wouldn't be likely to ketch the sort of animals I was after, and that some of the animals might ketch me; and, as I ain't exactly a fule, I ketched onto what he meant, and I ain't been nigh that place since. And then it turned out afterward as I thought it would, them hoboes had a hidin' place in that very swamp.”
”Right you are, Bill!” said Nick, laughing. ”Is that all the conversation you had with Handsome?”
”Every bit of it.”
”And you have never seen him since?”
”Never. Hold on; he axed me that time if I had ever mentioned the fact of our fust meetin', and I told him I had not. He seemed pleased at that, and he told me never to mention it. I allowed that I didn't see no reason why I should, and he laughed at that and seemed entirely satisfied.”
”That is excellent, Bill. Now, we will get at those plans. I don't want to lose any time.”
”Would you mind telling me why you axed me all about them two meetings?”
”Not at all. When I go out into the woods in the character of Bill Turner, I am likely at some time to run across Handsome himself. I want to be posted, so that he won't know but what I am you. I don't want him to catch me; see?”
”Yes. But do you suppose you kin fix yourself to look enough like me so's he won't know the difference when he sees you?”
”Certainly.”
The old man shook his head.
”I don't believe it,” he said, ”but maybe you can. How about the voice?
Your voice ain't no more like mine than a----”
”I can do that, too,” replied Nick, exactly simulating the voice in which the old man was speaking; and he looked around him in wonder, and then at the detective.
”It does beat all!” he said at last. ”I guess you're some too many for me, sir.”
”Shall we get at those plans now?”
”Right away.”